Puritanism is alive and well

[AlexR]

http://www.sudouest.com/accueil/actuali ... 9/mil.html

Best regards,
Alex R.

[AlexR]

Sorry, I should have added IN FRENCH to the header...

What it amounts to is that a Bordeaux wine producer wanted to export wine to the US with verse - in French! - from Charles Baudelaire's famous Fleurs du Mal ("Flowers of Evil") on the label.

They American authorities refused saying that the words were "an incitement to debauchery".
This is hardly believable, and shows what tremendous abuse of power there is by bureaucrats, and the ridiculous reign of "political correctness" in the US.

Here is the translation of the "incriminated" 8 lines I pulled off the Intenet http://fleursdumal.org/poem/192 :

"One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
"O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
This song full of light and of brotherhood
From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals.

Vegetal ambrosia, precious grain scattered
By the eternal Sower, I shall descend in you
So that from our love there will be born poetry,
Which will spring up toward God like a rare flower!"

I ask you: what sane person would refuse those words on a wine label?

Best regards,
Alex R.

[DavidG]

I hear Manfred Krankl of Sine Qua Non complain about similar idiocy at ATF (or whoever makes these decisions) every now and then. Never underestimate the anal sphincter pressure of the alcohol regulators. Maybe they can make this into some positive PR, like Rothschild did by blanking out the label on the '93 Mouton headed for the US. That was in response to a few prudish protests - ATF didn't even get around to banning the label before she pulled it.

[jal]

I hate this kind of sensationalistic journalism, it's the reason I do not buy newspapers like the NY Post, or in London - the Sun or the Daily Mirror.
I am not saying the facts are wrong, and if they are indeed right, it is puritanical and appalling. However, the writer seems to have an agenda, he doesn't check his facts, he doesn't attempt to contact the bureau of ATF to hear their side of the story, he doesn't even bother to show a copy of the letter the chateau has received. It looks like there was an agenda to print a sensationalistic story and if the facts prove to be wrong, the paper will bury a retraction in small print in the back pages, by then the damage is done, the chateau has received its publicity and Sud-Ouest has its story.
Sorry, end of rant, now, I feel better.

[AlexR]

Jacques,

It is not really possible for a newspaper in provincial France to do some of that fact checking you speak of in the US.

Also, government agencies are notoriously difficult to pin down on anything...

Alex

[AlexR]

Another censored wine label:

http://www.terredevins.com/article-586- ... ette-.html

Alex R.